RELATIONS OF MUNICIPAL ADMINISTRATION 425 



rately organized administrative group. In sound logic, there is no 

 important reason why the schools and the department of public 

 relief should not also come under the control of the municipal 

 council, and the oversight of its standing committees. But in both 

 instances there have been reasons of history and tradition for the 

 separate control of these two functions. 



Speaking in general, the enormous demands of an expanded and 

 ever-improving municipal life have constantly added to the volume 

 and the variety of the work intrusted to the British municipal coun- 

 cils. Yet these boards of directors have been fully equal to the new 

 tasks imposed upon them, and it will be generally agreed that from 

 the standpoint of the framework or organization of municipal gov- 

 ernment, the British cities have no serious problems remaining to be 

 solved. As science and the arts of civilized life point out new and 

 better ways to promote the well-being of the people through munici- 

 pal effort, the British town councils show themselves fully competent 

 to initiate and to administer the new services. 



Similar though less acute and less aggravated conditions of urban 

 growth had required municipal reorganization in other countries. 

 Those most important for our present purposes are the municipal 

 codes of France and of Prussia. It was characteristic of the law- 

 giving work of the Napoleonic period that it should have been at 

 once drastic and of uniform and logical character. Making an 

 exception of Paris, as the English system has made an exception 

 of London, - - the French communal and municipal code of the 

 early part of the nineteenth century created a system which was 

 made applicable to the entire territory of France. The central 

 feature of the system was the communal council. The number of 

 members of the council varied in the ratio of population of the 

 communes. As the rural commune grew into the urban community 

 or municipality, its organization became more elaborate, but all upon 

 a sliding-scale plan prescribed in the terms of a universally applicable 

 statute. 



In the long struggle between centralized authority on the one hand 

 and the spirit of local self-government on the other, this municipal 

 mechanism has sometimes been administered by the higher authori- 

 ties through a system of central appointments, quite as bureaucratic 

 as the institutions of Russia itself. At other times, this mechanism 

 has worked with something like English local freedom. In either 

 case, however, its outer forms have changed very little. 



The most important thing about this legislation was its scientific 

 character, its thoroughly modern aspect, and its well-nigh incredible 

 achievements in sweeping away the anomalies which had grown 

 up through the centuries. Thus, the Napoleonic administrative 

 laws prepared the way for the municipal growth of the nineteenth 



